Jun 27 2008
Cotanchobee Park: A 12 Part History of Tampa, Part 4
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It was Gen. Andrew Jackson who recommended that a fort be built on Tampa Bay. James Gadsden, his aide, suggested that troops from the Fourth Infantry should be the first to be stationed at the new post. Col. George Mercer Brooke, a hero of the War of 1812, commanded a unit of the Fourth, which was stationed at Pensacola. Col. Brooke arrived at the Tampa Bay site on Jan 22, 1824, with four companies. The fort that he designed had utility, convenience, & beauty. Capt. Isaac Clark, a military comrade, pronounced the barracks with its setting among the majestic live oaks & wild orange trees, “The best barracks of its kind, in the United States.” A visitor found the site “delightful.” Beyond the beauty of its location, Cantonment Brooke - soon, Fort Brooke, would become the southern anchor of the U.S .military line of offense & control that would be anchored on the northeast by Fort King, at the Indian Agency, near the site of the old Indian village of Ocale (Ocala, “my camp”). In proposing the fort on the bay, Gadsden had told the Secretary of War that “a judicious location of an adequate force simultaneous with the concentration of the Indians cannot but have the happy effect of obtaining such a control as to render them perfectly Subservient to the views of the Government.” In this, he was echoing the view of many in government, but not of the military officers on the scene. The soldiers knew that the Florida Indians had no intention of becoming “perfectly Subservient” to anyone.